


Ascertaining

by apparitionism



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 21:25:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17454587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apparitionism/pseuds/apparitionism
Summary: It seems prudent, given the state of Tumblr, to work on bringing even the small stuff over from there, so here's a storylet from a couple years ago... it's short and sweet and (I hope) a little bit funny.





	Ascertaining

**Author's Note:**

> I was exhausted and and in a mood, and there was this prompt: “Describe in detail the most boring thing imaginable.” So okay.

Helena reads labels. Any tags or packaging, really: cereal boxes, toothpaste tubes, drug facts… even shampoo bottles. “Lather, rinse, repeat if desired,” Myka had heard her mumble to herself once as she beheld Pete’s anti-dandruff favorite.

“What are you _doing_?” Myka had demanded, the first time she’d heard murmurings that went something like “it is a violation of federal law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling turn nozzle to on spray surface until thoroughly covered let stand five minutes rinse.”

“Ascertaining,” had been the answer.

“Ascertaining what, exactly?”

Slightly offended: “The details.”

“Of?”

“It all.”

In the kitchen, as whispers, Myka hears, “vitamin A palmitate.” And “modified wheat starch.” In the laundry room, “machine wash cold with like colors gentle cycle do not bleach warm iron if needed.”

Myka thinks, _Okay, you glorious nutbar. I can work with this._ So, for the first time since her macaroni-based DNA model in sixth grade, Myka undertakes a _craft project_. She buys the finest-tipped Sharpie she can find; she cuts a small rectangle of glossy fabric; she measures a length of yarn.

Helena comes to bed on an ensuing night and stops cold. She asks, “What on _earth_ is around your neck?”

“The details,” Myka says, as deadpan as she can.

“Of?”

“It all.” She can’t maintain it. “Okay, not all. Some. Maybe.”

Helena crouches beside the bed, touches the glossy tag. That is enough to make Myka’s blood speed, but Helena also _concentrates_ as she reads, and Myka thinks she might now die. “This is… rather explicit,” Helena says.

“The details,” Myka breathes. “Tend to be.”

“Rather explicit,” Helena repeats, “and rather unlike you.”

“You don’t like it. Okay, never mind, because you don’t like it.”

“I did not say that.” Helena places her body very near Myka’s.  And then, in same low hum in which she declaims information regarding net weights and expiration dates, she begins, “Remove articles of clothing with alacrity…”

END

**Author's Note:**

> original Tumblr tags: I mean, as you do, or as you would, if you were Helena, right?, I am so tired I don't even know my name, it's probably still apparitionism, but you got to prove it on me, this post is not even really a thing, given that it was written to a prompt about being boring, I'll try to get back on the nonboring horse in not too long, but for now, here!, have some labels!


End file.
